Von Daniel Bickermann. With its culture-oriented social system Iceland has always been a paradise for artists and writers, who often times can live and work off of social welfare (the author and nobel price winner Halldór Laxness made Iceland and its only 320.000 inhabitants the nation with most nobel prize winners per capita in all the world), but cinema has been a problem-child for a long time amongst the arts in the country with the northernmost capital of the world. The very low population, the late independence in 1945 and the tiny language community led to the fact that an Icelandic television broadcast wasn't around until the 1960s, when finally some filmmakers could learn the tricks of the trade there. So it's not surprising that for long decades the manageable output of Iceland filmmaking amounted mostly to regional stories or adaptations of the famous Sagas.

This didn't change until the 1970s, when the Reykjavík Film Festival was founded, as was the National Film Archiv and the Film Funding Agency. Furthermore, many filmmakers attended film schools on the European mainland, bringing this knowledge back with them into their country where later, finally, a small film school was created in the Reykjavík suburb of Kópavogur. After a recession in the sector, which lasted well into the 1980s, first international success finally occurred, with Þorsteinn Jónsson's ATOMIC STATION the first ever Icelandic entry at the Cannes Film Festival competition in 1984 and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson receiving an Oscar nomination for Children of Nature in 1991. It is mostly Friðriksson and the tireless Baltasar Kormákur with their social dramas and literary adaptations, who in current decades have held the Icelandic cinema present at the big international festivals. In recent years directors like Dagur Kári or Ragnar Bragason could also score international successes and awards.

These days there are something like five or six domestic feature films produced for the cinema every year (many of the European co-productions), and there's a vibrant short and amateur film scene happening in the capital as well as in university centres like Akureyri und Kópavogur.

But with its amazing landscapes and a generous national film funding system Iceland has in recent years also become a favourite destination and shooting location for prominent foreign productions: Clint Eastwood shot parts of his double epic Flags of our Fathers and Letters FROM Iwo Jima here; Christopher Nolan sent Bruce Wayne off into the rough landscape of the Arctic island for several scenes in Batman Begins; and Lee Tamahori even had James Bond in his 20th outing Die Another Day make an extensive visit up north. After the massive devaluation of the national currency, the Icelandic Krónur, and the corresponding need for foreign investment the state support for international co-productions was ramped up extensively in 2009.

Those who have the honour to roll a camera on the rain-soaked island quickly realise, what is the biggest asset as well as the biggest threat to any Icelandic film production: Nature itself. "If you don't like the weather, just wait for 15 minutes", a popular saying goes, and coupled with phenomena like the midnight sun in summer and the northern light in winter the ever-changing outside conditions can quickly drive a filmteam without any flexibility to distraction. But whoever sees the ruminant lakes amidst moss-covered volcanic craters, the milk-white, steaming hot spring baths in the middle of pitch-black Basalt rock formations, or the majestic icebergs swimming in crystal-clear blue glacier lagoons, knows that nature can also be the filmmakers best friend – when and if she cooperates, it doesn't matter much where you point the camera: Every images is breathtaking.

Links

• Icelandic Film Funding
• Icelandic Film School in Kópavogur
• Reykjavík International Film Festival

• THANKS (IS 2007. Benedikt Erlingson)